(urth) Rajan and Food

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Wed Apr 29 09:02:38 PDT 2009


I think part of the answer must include some loosening of our terms, especially soul vs body and plant vs animal. For example, if a soul can be a tree, then it won't be a tree as we know it, but some kind of soul-tree or tree-soul.

And if a creature runs around on legs eating other creatures, it may still have evolved from plants, and thus be an "animal" only from an ecological point of view. It may still be a plant on the genetic and cellular level. (The Rajan can be right and wrong at the same time.)

And if "vine" is merely a morphological term, it doesn't indicate lack of sentience or other qualities---merely that an alien creature grows very tall and skinny, lacks support structures, and feeds on the alien trees (which also provide support). 

And so on ...

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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:39:50 -0500
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Rajan and Food
To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <9AD1435AF7FB42E993C2FE7140F986FC at eMachinePC>
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	reply-type=original


>> >>Brian, let's posit that the Neighbors are dryads--
>> >>that their steady physical form is one of the
>> >>"sleepy trees" in the forests of Blue. How do the inhumi
>> >>make the jump to become vines? Or how do they
>> >>transform back to winged/clawed vampiric reptiles?
>> >>That is the fundamental problem with any
>> >>"tree/vine theory" regarding the Neighbors and inhumi.
>> >>J.
>>     
> >_________________________________
> >James, I wonder if the transformation Inhumi undergo when
> >interred for long periods of time points to what happens to them?
> >Perhaps given a long enough period without prey they simply
> >shrivel down to the form of a vine?
> >_________________________________
>   

Well, there are references to the trees and vines being at war with each 
other. So it implies that inhumi-as-vines are not inactive. And if they 
*were* inactive as vines why would they say "Oh look! A human. I'll change 
to a reptilian winged clawed creature. And without humans and Neighbors they 
still have other animals to feed on, just not creatures that would give 
their children souls. I'm not trying to be obtuse here.  I can clearly map 
how an inhumi becomes human:
1) And inhuma feeds on a human.
2) Her child is ensouled with humanity.
3) The ensouled inhumi dream travels with a Neighbor and stays there.

David is wrong about his implication that inhumi are not flatly asserted to 
be animal; Although, the assertion is by the Rajan and he is not 
biologist-expert on the life-forms of Green. Still. They give birth, and I 
seem to recall that they lay eggs. Nevertheless, he and I agree that there 
*is* some intended connection between Neighbor/Inhumi and Trees/Vines (and 
it's not metaphorical). I just don't understand how we get there.
Unless....

Suppose the trees are not the physical form of the Neighbors. Suppose they 
are the form of their souls? Then you have a Neighbor running around as a 
greenbuck or some other form, and an inhumi bites him. The soul of the 
inhumi child would be plant-like. Then a Neighbor dream-travels with the 
ensouled inhumi to Blue and voila! Except, shouldn't the inhumi's soul be a 
tree then?

J. 



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